Notes about Economic Goals in Colombia.

As recently reported by the official source, monetary poverty registered 33% of the Colombian population for the year 2.023, which is equivalent to 16.7 million people. This result, together with inequality, is higher than that of several Latin American countries, except for those in Central America, Bolivia, Venezuela and Haiti.

Of course, it exceeds the countries of Europe and North America, whose levels of monetary poverty range between 12% and 25% according to international organizations.

The official source also published today ( friday 26) as a complement to the previous result, another subsequent report that expands the conditions of the Colombian population by considering it within the following social categories: poor, vulnerable, middle class and upper class.

In effect, the poor are that population of the country that is below a poverty line that is in monthly money of a value per person within households of $435.375 and corresponds, as mentioned before, according to the official source, to 33% of the Colombian population.

The additional information is as follows. The vulnerable are the inhabitants whose income per person is within the range of $435.375 and $853.608 and the result shows that it is 31.5% of the population or 15.9 million inhabitants.

The middle class are the inhabitants whose income per person is within the range of $853.608 and $4,596.352 and as a result it is 32.4% of the population, that is 16.4 million inhabitants.

On the other hand, the upper class are the inhabitants whose income per person within the household corresponds to more than $4.596.352 and is equivalent to 3.1% of the population or 1.6 million people.

From the above, it can be observed that by adding to the poor the vulnerable population that is also susceptible to falling into poverty */, the result is that between the two they add up to 64.5% of the total or 32.6 million inhabitants, while the middle class and high income add up to 35.5% or only 18 million inhabitants, this without mentioning the difference between those and the middle class separately with the high income, where the difference is wider.

The above situation can also be observed according to the official source considering the disaggregation between capitals and rural areas of the Colombian municipalities. There it is found that only controlling by capitals the results are: poor 30.6%, vulnerable 26.7%, middle class 38.8% and upper class 3.9%. But when detailing the rural areas, the result is different: poor 41.2%, vulnerable 47.6%, middle class 10.8% and upper class 0.4%.

From the above it can be observed that if the municipal capitals are measured, the poor and vulnerable population is significantly lower than if only the rural areas of the municipalities are considered, meaning that the condition of poor and vulnerable increases in the rural areas compared to the capitals.

Finally, other observations are the following. From 2.022 to 2.023, monetary poverty fell from 36.6% to 33%, with a reduction of 1.6 million people. However, compared to other countries, the difference is significant, as mentioned at the beginning. With this expansion of information from the official source (presented in this note), which includes, in addition to the poor, the vulnerable, the middle class and high incomes, the magnitude of the differences between those with the lowest incomes and those with high incomes is shown. Therefore, among the possible policy and economic planning measures are those of including a goal to reduce monetary poverty, as well as an inflation goal, or as well as the presence of objectives for which periodic monitoring is carried out on the levels of interest rates, exchange rate, GDP and unemployment rate.

Likewise, for monetary poverty, a periodic follow up must be established, for which it is required that the annual information be reported in the first months of the following year (not in the month of july) and with a frequency that is not only annual but semiannual and then quarterly, as they do with the GDP. This is to consolidate the analysis and research with comprehensive economic and social results.

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*/ Regarding this, there are several factors to take into account, such as an unemployment rate higher than 10% for several years, even in the near future; inflation that does not fall more quickly but tends to slow down to high levels with respect to the goal; interest rates that are still high, and credits for microenterprises that are low in amount within the banking portfolio.